Weekend Box Office (10/31/10): Saw 7 3D rules over one last Halloween weekend.

The Saw series has been a Halloween weekend custom of sorts for the last six years. It debuted in third place on Halloween weekend 2004, where it opened with $18 million behind the second weekend of The Grudge and the opening weekend of Ray. From 2005 until 2009, Saw ruled the annual Halloween roast, with $30-33 million opening weekends in the Halloween or pre-Halloween weekend. Last year, it didn't quite go as planned. Fueled by viewer antipathy over the dull and listless Saw V, and the wide-release of the slow-building Paranormal Activity, Saw VI (ironically the best film in the Saw series) crumbled over the weekend before Halloween, opened with just $14 million before ending with just $27 million. This year, Lionsgate went back to the safety of Halloween weekend, and declined to open directly against Paranormal Activity 2. With ads (trailer 1 and trailer 2) touting the 3D gimmickry and alleging that Saw VII would be the final chapter in the series, could the long-running franchise regain some of its lost box office luster. The answer? Not really...

Weekend Box Office Review (10/24/10): Paranormal Activity 2 scores record $41.5 million. Hereafter nets $12 million. Holdovers hold strong.

Paranormal Activity 2 blasted into the record books over the weekend, grossing $40.6 million in its first three days. That's the biggest opening ever for a supernatural horror picture, the second-largest debut for any kind of horror picture (behind Hannibal's $58 million debut in 2001), the biggest horror debut in October history, the fifth-biggest October opening on record, and the 19th-largest R-rated opening ever. Costing just $3 million, the Paramount sequel capitalized on the much-buzzed about original, which had a stunningly successful platform release over last September and October. If you recall, Paranormal Activity grossed $7.9 million on just 160 screens over the second weekend in October, and eventually went wide over the weekend before Halloween, where it famously kneecapped the long-running Saw franchise. If the original film's box office run slightly mirrored the run of the original Scream (small opening weekend, slow jog to $100 million+), then Paranormal Activity 2 is definitely Scream 2 (the Wes Craven sequel also came out a year after the original and scored an eye-popping $33 million debut in December 1997).